Paul Embery is one of the most interesting, insightful and original voices to have emerged in British journalism for some time — Douglas Murray
SO, the government has backtracked on key parts of its plan to tighten the rules for Indefinite Leave to Remain (ILR). Home secretary Shabana Mahmood, who has at least shown some understanding of the problems caused, economically and socially, by the phenomenon of mass immigration, has been outmanoeuvred by the open-border utopians inside the Labour party’s ranks.
The consequences of this volte-face for Labour are easily predictable. It will appeal to the assortment of progressive activists, metropolitan liberals and cosmopolitan universalists whom the party is desperate to prise away from the Lib Dems and Greens.
But in small-town, provincial Britain – the type of places that have suffered most acutely from the immigration chaos over recent years – it will reaffirm the perception that Labour really has no desire to control the numbers coming into the country and will convince many voters in such places that their interests lie instead with Reform or the Tories.
Even now, after all the political ruptures caused by the impact of mass immigration in our communities over the past quarter of a century, and as poll after poll continues to show it as a major concern for voters, many within the Labour party seem utterly impervious to the suggestion that a tough and rigorous policy is necessary.
Neither do they seem to recognise that, whenever the party is seen as being weak on immigration, it results in a loss of support among large swathes of traditional working-class voters.
It’s almost as if the movers and shakers inside Labour have adopted a deliberate strategy to build a new electoral base rooted in the fashionable cities and university towns and to abandon any pretence of speaking for those living in the grittier, more deprived and less hip parts of the country.
How else to explain the pressure exerted on the home secretary to back down on her eminently sensible proposals? And how to rationalise the decision to push through a raft of other initiatives which will collectively trigger an increase in the number of foreign nationals residing in Britain – with all the fresh challenges that will present to many hard-pressed communities.